Well, it's over a year later, and Steorn's back -- with no demo in sight.

ENGADGET: Steorn returns, promises to open Orbo specs, give you a pony

Dublin startup Steorn is promising to demonstrate an invention in London this week that uses magnets to crank out a limitless supply of clean, cheap energy.

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Steorn did not respond to questions from Forbes.com.

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To convince you that this isn't all an elaborate sham, Steorn's also setting up the "SKDB, " a knowledge base containing all the secrets of the Orbo, which will initially be open to 300 engineers and then sometime later to the general public.

ENGADGET: Steorn returns, promises to open Orbo specs, give you a pony

But that hasn't stopped Steorn from making some big claims over much of the past year: The invention could end global warming, wean the world economy from its dependence on oil from war-torn regions and power some of the world's poorest communities.

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Instead, the company's selling SteornLab testing equipment to other organizations working on magic fairy-power rotary and magnetic systems, and it's also got plans to sell something called "ZeroF passive magnetic bearings" later this year -- we'd assume ZeroF means "zero friction, " which is nicely impossible and totally in line with basically everything Steorn stands for.

ENGADGET: Steorn returns, promises to open Orbo specs, give you a pony

The last time we heard from Steorn, the company had just joined a long line of optimistic but doomed people and companies unable to actually demo free-energy tech when put the test -- and although the Orbo didn't actually do anything, CEO Sean McCarthy promised us that we'd eventually get a working demo with physical access to the device.

ENGADGET: Steorn returns, promises to open Orbo specs, give you a pony